Minister of Oil and Minerals in the Salvation Government has called on the United Nations to help deliver oil derivatives to the Yemeni people.
During his meeting with William David Gressly, the UN Resident Coordinator for Yemen, on Tuesday, Minister Ahmed Abdullah Dars said that the United Nations should have “a prominent role in pressuring the countries of aggression to release the fuel ships.”
Dars pointed out that the current situation “has become dangerous,” and the release of Yemeni fuel ships “has become an urgent necessity that calls for urgent intervention to prevent the suspension of service sectors”. He stressed the duty of the United Nations “to work to find a mechanism to ensure the cessation of acts of maritime piracy by the coalition of aggression and prevent the seizure of fuel ships in the future.”
Dars also revealed that the forces of the Saudi-led coalition “are still holding 14 fuel vessels, including a ship loaded with diesel and a ship loaded with domestic gas, for varying periods of time, up to a maximum of 11 months.”
He also explained that the fines incurred by the Yemeni people for detaining fuel ships “reached more than 33 million dollars during 2021.”
At the beginning of 2021, Yemen Petroleum Company announced that the economic losses resulting from the Saudi-led coalition’s continued detention of fuel ships exceeded $ 10 billion.
The executive director of the Petroleum Company, Ammar Al-Adrai, confirmed that “the maritime piracy on fuel ships has caused the suspension of more than 50% of the operational capabilities of the service, industrial and commercial sectors.”
Yemen Petroleum Company organized a protest in front of the United Nations office in Sana’a last January, to denounce the continued detention of oil derivative ships by the US-Saudi aggression.
